Tempo Twin

Gerry ThompsonFriday, April 25, 2014

t this point, Tempo Twin (a Splinter Twin combo deck with a backup plan) is mostly a known quantity. While your opponent stockpiles removal in an attempt to stop your combo, you end up nickel and diming him or her out with Snapcaster Mage, Pestermite, and Lightning Bolt. Oddly enough, it's very effective.

Some, like Patrick Dickmann, have fully embraced the tempo aspect and added things like Tarmogoyf. For whatever reason, no one (that I've seen) has tried Young Pyromancer in that spot. Baba123's deck looks like a budget deck with its lack of fetch lands, but restrictions often breed creativity.

Young Pyromancer kills most people just as well as Tarmogoyf does, while not requiring an additional splash, so it's not all downside. Additionally, Young Pyromancer encourages you to run a lot of cheap card-drawing spells, which also allows you to lower your overall land count. In the end, your deck ends up running like a well-oiled machine. I doubt there are many turns where you have unused mana.

At this point, I'd advise anyone playing Splinter Twin to have answers to their opponents' answers. Sometimes, it's as simple as fighting them with a card they didn't expect, such as Young Pyromancer. If you're playing Dickmann's RUG Twin variant, you should at least give Baba123's version a chance.

Gerry Thompson is a former professional Magic player and strategy writer, whose career highlights includes a Top 8 at Pro Tour Gatecrash and two Grand Prix wins in Denver and Nashville. He's currently a development intern for Wizards of the Coast.